Donna Ulisse

#4...The Lamp Chord/ Hairbrush Tour

My wonderful grandmother Bonna would have my mother bring me up to Richmond the minute my summer vacation started and that's where I would stay until it was time to start school in the fall. I loved being with my grandparents. We were just the three of us through those months and to this day there is no resort in the world with that kind of atmosphere! That little woman could cook. She taught me to sew, crochet, cook, sing harmony and do an endless amount of crafts to fill the daytime hours until my granddaddy got home from work. I did this routine for years.

One thing we might do during the day was to cross the busy street in front of their apartment (she never learned to drive a car so we walked to the stores) and go to her favorite place in the world, Woolworths, a five and dime. It's still a magical place in my mind. It was there that I got to look through 45's for the first time. My record player came with a few 45's, all children songs. That was fine but I was developing my own taste for music through my daddy's love for the radio and I wanted some big girl songs. I was looking at a Loretta Lynn record and put it back on the shelf when Bonna said it was time to go. When we got back to her house and were taking things out of the bags there it was. I can still see her eyes shining because she loved giving me things. She did a little wiggle with her butt that is forever my fondest memory of her (well, that and her buttermilk biscuits) and handed me the record. Oh, it was game on then. The song was "Journey To The End Of My World" and I think the flip side was "When The Man Of The House Is Not At Home". Now I'm all of nine at the time so the subject matter was a little ahead of me. I listened to it all summer long. I loved it so good. When my mom and dad came to get me all those weeks later I didn't mention my new record. We just talked the two hours that it took to get home about all the things they did with my brothers during the summer. That night after dinner, I went upstairs and put my record on. There was a dresser with a big mirror in my room and I posed myself in front of it with my hairbrush pressed against a lamp chord in my hand and proceeded to wail on the song. I suppose I needed to look like I had a mic and cable to really feel the part. Anyway, I must have been singing to the top of my lungs and totally unaware that I had an audience who crept up to my door and cracked it open. Talk about being embarrassed when I saw my parents standing in the doorway, slack jawed and staring. My dad was honestly speechless and my mom was applauding. Next thing you know my dad went downstairs, got something to cut with, came back in my room and cut the lamp chord off of my lamp and with some electrical tape he secured my hairbrush to it. He packed up my record player with the record inside and walked me over to his twin brothers house (right next door) and made me put on a concert for my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. Dad was struck by the big bug and from then on his mission was to get me to Nashville. That's where it really started. It was guitar lessons, vocal lessons. My dad even bought a restaurant so that I would have somewhere to sing. He built a nice stage in the corner and sought out a band that wouldn't mind his daughter getting up and singing a few songs a night.

So I must give Bonna the credit for buying me the music and my dad credit for giving me a stage and of course my Uncle, Aunt and cousins for being my first big tour!